A Birthday Truck
by kirstyvega
Summary: A snapshot into Bella's life some years after the Cullens departed - AU, Edward never resurfaced - when her truck gives her a little trouble.  Lucky for Bella, Jacob's solution is worth it in the end!
1. Breakdown

_Disclaimer – to state the obvious, I don't own Twilight cuz my name's not Smeyer. (Don't own the truck either and I'm way more upset about that!)_

The truck just hadn't wanted to start this morning. After repeated efforts, Bella gave up, grabbed her bag and scrambled out. She sighed in resignation and started walking across town to Newton's Outfitters, grateful that the weather was unseasonably pleasant. It wasn't exactly sunny but it wasn't raining either and, for an autumn morning in Forks, that alone was something to smile about.

She'd be a little late to work but early on a Wednesday in mid-September was hardly the height of peak season. Besides, she'd worked enough overtime during the summer that Marsha could cut her some slack.

Perhaps, Bella reflected as she scuffled her shoes through the first of the season's fallen leaves, despite Jacob's continued careful and devoted tinkering, her 1955 Chevy was just too old to be a reliable everyday vehicle. Perhaps she should buy a more contemporary car – a little hatchback with good fuel economy would certainly be easier on her hip pocket and the environment.

Maybe she could keep the truck for weekends; Charlie could take it on fishing trips. He'd like that.

It was Charlie, after all, who'd affectionately named the truck Beastly Bess in a surprising state of creativity. When Bella had questioned him, he'd replied in his simple way that all vehicles should have a name. Bella had concluded this was yet another element of the male mind that she'd likely never understand. Instead of grappling with the logic contained by the Y chromosome, she'd asked her father the name of his police cruiser.

Never one for detailed explanations, Charlie had shrugged. For once Bella had pressed him for an answer and then saw a hint of pink flush his cheeks. He had ummed under his breath for a moment before quietly responding, "Well it's a cruiser and it's a car so she's Cruisey Carleen."

Although she'd spent all of her life disliking the name Isabella, Bella was suddenly and silently grateful that her mother had named her and not left it up to Charlie.

A honking horn jolted Bella back to the present moment. The lights changed and she turned right off G Street onto South Forks Avenue; Newton's in sight just beyond the motel and RV park.

As a souped up, modern mini pick up roared past, bass thumping, Bella thought she should probably just sell Beastly and be done with it. After all, she'd had an offer only the week before last.

A man had walked into Newton's asking if anyone knew anything about the 'classic pickup with the flare sides' in the parking lot. Meekly, Bella had answered it was hers whilst envisioning some calamity – had it spontaneously disintegrated into nothing but a pile of rust or had it somehow rolled into a tourist's expensive but highly-impractical-for-Forks convertible?

The man was clearly enthusiastic, ranting about how unusual it was on the west coast to find a truck of that age in running condition with such good body work. Bella thought about all the dents and paint chips and must have looked confused because he began explaining that salty coastal air usually caused 'significant corrosion and rust'.

Then he'd peppered Bella with questions about the truck's 'specs', as he'd called them. She must have looked very confused so he gave up and told her that he wanted to buy it, put a 427 big block V8 (whatever that was, probably something only appreciated by someone with a Y chromosome) under the hood and turn the truck into a hotrod.

Bella felt traitorous even asking him what he'd offer. Thirty-five hundred, he'd replied. Bella felt more traitorous thinking of what she could spend that on.

Today, feeling less than charitable towards Beastly and her quirks, Bella thought three and half grand would make a mighty fine down payment on something that'd actually get her to work and college on time.

She had told the man she'd think about it. Meaning she'd go home and laugh with Jake that some fool actually wanted to pay that amount of good money for Beastly.

The man had keenly pressed his card into her hand and left Newton's whistling. Through a side window, Bella had seen him once again admiring her truck. Turning back to help another customer she'd smiled to herself, happy in the knowledge she wasn't the only person who loved her truck.

Love, she thought grumpily, was not the word she'd use this morning though.

Jake had indeed laughed with her when she'd told him about the revhead in Newton's. Then he'd casually suggested she _could_ sell the truck – that would, after all, leave him with a lot more free time on his hands. Bella had looked scandalised. She'd retorted that she'd be just as likely to sell Charlie.

Jake had smiled easily, kissed her and said he'd keep patching Beastly together if that's what she wanted. Anything for his Bells and her truck had always been Jake's unofficial, unspoken motto.

Reaching the last block before Newton's, Bella pulled her phone out of her bag and left a message on Jake's answering service asking him to bring some tools with him when he came to dinner that night. He'd probably have everything he needed rattling around in the trunk of his old VW Rabbit but this way he'd be sure to bring at least half his garage with him – enough mechanical stuff that Bella couldn't identify but thought could possibly keep a fleet of 747s in mint condition.

Marsha Newton, as Bella had mentally predicted, didn't mind Bella being ten minutes late. In her usual breezy way, she told Bella she hadn't yet had a single customer.

"Maybe the good weather's keeping them away," Marsha joked. "Is that why you walked?"

"Truck wouldn't start again," Bella groused. "I've asked Jake to look at it tonight."

Marsha tut-tutted and assumed an all-knowing air. "Shoulda sold it when you had the chance, Bella. Or is that why you keep that boyfriend of yours around? Personal mechanic? Shouldn't you be marrying him soon anyway? Been together forever."

Bella shuffled fishing lures and let Marsha run on.

Ever since her son, and Bella's former high school classmate, Mike, had married his first and only college girlfriend four years ago at the ripe old age of twenty-one, Marsha was convinced the entire town of Forks needed to be united in matrimonial bliss. She'd even had a crack at Charlie, telling him he needed a nice wife, not Bella, to cook his dinners for him. Charlie had replied that for as long as Bella wanted to live at home and study part time, she was more than welcome to do whatever she pleased in the kitchen.

Marsha had suspected Charlie was just glad his daughter was back from wherever it was she'd disappeared to after high school. Still, he was nice looking man for his years. A wife would suit him.

Sticking with the automotive theme, Marsha again tried to engage Bella in conversation. "Mike and Jasmine sold their old college clunkers last month and bought a Yaris. You know, one of the nice hatchbacks that's good on fuel. Maybe you should think of doing the same, Bella."

"Maybe," Bella replied uneasily, unsure how the discussion had jumped from her non-pending, non-existent nuptials to new cars.

Marsha blathered on in her relentless but harmless manner. "It's quite roomy for a little car; they'll be able to fit a baby seat in the back seat easily. If you like, I can get you the name of the dealership they went to."

Bang goes the idea of a hatchback, Bella thought to herself. She wouldn't be caught dead driving the same car as Marsha's can-do-no-wrong but characterless daughter-in-law.

"Yeah, thanks. I'll, well, I'll see what Jake says. Hopefully it's not terminal and Bea- the truck can be resurrected," Bella replied, correcting herself mid-sentence so as to not make public her truck's name. Charlie's other pearl of male mechanical wisdom dictated that car names should stay within the immediate family.

"I know, you just want to see that big, strapping young man of yours with his shirt off under the hood of your truck again, right Bella?" Marsha teased.

If only you knew the half of it, you poor, bored, gossiping woman, Bella thought cockily. Outwardly she allowed herself to blush suitably and mumbled something about Quileutes certainly being a bit taller than average.

The rest of the day was occupied by more of Marsha's rambling and Bella's limited replies. Both women were glad for the appearance of the day's grand total of five customers and the eventual arrival of five pm.

_A/N - I wrote this in May, inspired by walking home on a beautiful but cold, southern hemisphere autumn day. I'll post the other 4 chapters over the next couple of weeks._


	2. Scheming

Birthdays were as illegal in the Swan household as underage drinking had been and the presence of Edward Cullen still was.

Charlie justified this because Renee had somehow managed to take Bella and abscond to Arizona on his twenty-third birthday. When he thought about it, which he didn't do very often, Charlie realised there was no 'somehow' about it. Renee hadn't remembered details like birthdays even when she'd actually wanted to be with him.

Bella justified this because she preferred not to remember how she'd once hated the idea of getting older. She was now glad enough to age like everyone else but didn't feel the need to celebrate this subtle achievement on any specific day.

The arrangement suited Charlie, who had never asked why Bella stopped even her previous meagre celebrations. He assumed it was something to do with the three years she'd spent travelling the world between the summers of her eighteenth and twenty-first years. She didn't talk much about that time and Charlie didn't pry.

Charlie did, however, regret that he hadn't been able to buy Bella presents while she was away. Instead he'd fed a slow but steady stream of cash into her bank account, all the while wishing he could watch her unwrap a present at their kitchen table. He still regretted not being able to buy Bella anything for her birthday but made sure she always had at least two big Christmas gifts from him.

That proved an especially judicious policy last year when Renee had (somehow) managed to forget to mail Bella's parcel until the day before New Year's Eve.

The only person who disliked the Swan's birthday ban was Jake.

Bella insisted his birthday be celebrated with large amounts of cake and lasagne. And as much as Jake hated not being able to do the same for Bella, he didn't hate it enough to turn down her cooking. He'd eat his fill, all the while wishing he was allowed to take Bella out to dinner just once on her birthday.

This year though, this year she was twenty-five. A whole quarter of a century. For a girl he'd once worried wouldn't make it past eighteen, Jake thought the past seven years deserved some kind of acknowledgement.

Granted, he hadn't seen her for three of those years. He'd just held on to the idea that she was alive out there, somewhere, through a series of postcards. They'd been stamped in place like Cairns Australia, Quibdo Colombia (he had no idea where that was), Loch Shiel Scotland, some place in India he couldn't even pronounce and Henderson Lake British Columbia. (Jake'd run there the Friday evening after the mail came, swimming the Juan de Fuca straight in less than an hour, but she'd already moved on.)

He kept the postcards in a box under his bed and still looked at them at least once a month. Jake had long since memorised every word on each card. When he'd received them, every word had reminded him Bella was still Bella - even if she was being Bella far away. As bad as that was, it was better than her not being Bella at all.

Now when he read her old postcards, every word reminded him how damned lucky he was to have her. Here. And alive. And his. Truck, baggage and all.

Somehow, she'd survived. More than survived. She'd lived.

Because of this, because of Bella living, this year Jake finally made the decision to take birthday matters into his own very capable hands.

He'd badgered Charlie until he reluctantly agreed to co-conspire. This actually involved little effort on Charlie's part other than a large, consenting smile and an "Of course, son."

Jake considered himself very wise to get Bella's father onside.

He considered himself even wiser to keep his mouth shut about his plans to both Bella and the pack. Given that every January he endured the pack's idea of birthday presents – essentially what had become nearly a week of outlandish, one-upping practical jokes – Jake didn't think they needed to know what he was doing for Bella.

He wasn't sure he knew what he was doing for Bella. He was just trusting his heart. Billy always said that was a good thing to do.


	3. Where the Rain Took Me

By five in the afternoon on what Bella deemed to be possibly the most boring Wednesday she'd ever worked at Newton's, the weather had changed. A storm was blowing in from the west and it suddenly felt more like November than September to her. Several Forks residents must have thought so too because as she left the store, Bella caught the warm, thick smell of wood smoke permeating the air.

Locking up the store, Marsha again offered Bella a ride home, "You sure, girl? It wouldn't take me five minutes to zip over to your place and drop you off."

And try to sell me on your car as well as your daughter-in-law's, Bella thought savagely while politely declining Marsha.

"See you on Saturday," Bella bid her boss farewell and turned to face the nipping wind.

Forks didn't have very distinct seasons (raining, raining hard, and not raining didn't count) but sometimes, like today, an entire season was packed into one day. Of Forks' short-lived variations on precipitation, autumn was Bella's favourite. She wasn't sure why. While she did dislike the cold and her birthday, both of which appeared in September, it was days like today when she revelled in feeling the charge and restlessness of the air.

Jake loved days like this too – he said the wolf wanted to run against the wind. When the weather changed he'd often appear on her doorstep all keyed up, eyes darker than usual, and whisk her off somewhere private. Bella always thought his fresh, woodsy scent was a little stronger and more alluring when a storm was brewing.

The morning after nights like that had taught Bella to effectively hide Jake's lovebites from Charlie.

A gust of wind blew some leaves and old newspapers past Bella as she crossed the street, reminding her of the fall she was eight years old and tried to light a fire on her own.

Renee had saved and saved and finally they'd had enough money to buy a tiny place in south Phoenix. They moved in one crisp October day. Bella's two favourite things about that house had been the Chinese parasol tree in the backyard and the fireplace in the living room.

Renee had been stuck in traffic late one afternoon so Bella, feeling cold, filled the fireplace with newspapers and leaves from the tree. She'd seen men in the park burning leaves last week, and, thinking the colour of leaves and flames was nearly the same, concluded leaves would be warm, like flames. Bella had succeeded in smoking out the living room by the time Renee got home.

Renee reckoned the smell never quite left the house. Bella didn't mind. She'd always loved wood smoke and had even tried to a bottle a little of it during her disastrous fireplace incident.

Walking up her driveway, Bella winced at the thought of how she'd behaved a decade on – the autumn she'd turned eighteen. If someone had been able to bottle Edward Cullen she'd have drunk it until she overdosed.

She'd damn near overdosed on his absence anyway. That was the only autumn she'd lived through – sort of – where she hadn't noticed the comforting appearance of wood smoke in the air as the temperature dropped.

It was so fitting, Bella reflected as she unlocked the front door of Charlie's house, that one of her first clear memories after Edward left, after zombie-dom, (or AZ as she occasionally called it in her head) was of a La Push bonfire. She remembered realising that while the driftwood fire and bbq smelled delicious, Jake smelled better. Like home.

Except Bella hadn't wanted home to be a forest so she'd left as soon as she could after graduation.

xxx

Moving about the kitchen cooking dinner, Bella glanced at the corkboard. She'd sent the same postcards to Charlie as she had to Jake. Sill pinned up on the kitchen wall, a little faded and dog-eared, Charlie refused to let her take them down. Pausing, she thought about her travels as she eyed the touristy shots of big skies, rainforests and waterfalls.

Bella thought about all the places where she'd spent an autumn. It had only ever felt right when the houses had woodstoves and a forest backdrop. That's when she'd missed Jake the least.

The change in weather today was making her restless again. Not for travel, just for something more. Something she couldn't quite describe. A reason, a tie, an aim perhaps.

Shaking her head, Bella laughed at how maudlin she was being. She heard the front door open and her favourite voice filled the house. "I heard that, woman. You know laughing to yourself means you're a step further away from sanity than if you're only talking to yourself."

"Says the man who is half wolf," Bella retorted as Jake walked into the kitchen.

Wrapping his arms around her Jake spoke against her hair, "Sometimes I think that's your favourite half of me."

Bella giggled as the vibrations of Jake's voice reached her through their hug. Breathing in a lungful of his heady, bright, forested scent (definitely stronger today), she let the air out as a laugh.

"Nah, wolfboy. You know what my favourite part of you is..." She allowed the sentence to trail away suggestively.

Jake pulled back and looked at her speculatively, hopefully. "Later," she scolded, "Charlie's due home any minute."

"It'd only take a minute," Jake deliberately turned his corny charm on full bore and leered at her.

Bella smacked his shoulder with a spoon but then kissed it better. Unable to help herself she took another breath of him and mumbled, "You smell divine. Like the wood smoke on the walk home, only better.

"You know, I was just thinking before you got here that when I was away I missed you, and home, less when I found somewhere cold and damp outside with a good fire inside."

"Thanks honey. I know I'm hot, but I didn't realise you thought I was smokin' hot," Jake teased. For his efforts he got smacked with the wooden spoon a second time.

Then he said seriously, because she didn't often mention it and he wished he knew everything about his Bella, "Those places you went, that me and Charlie have postcards from, why'd you go there?"

Bella didn't answer immediately. She put the casserole in the oven and started something Jake thought looked suspiciously like his favourite apple and blackberry pie. He waited patiently for her to answer: she had a big knife in her hand now and it'd sting a bit more than the spoon if he irritated her again.

Finally Bella stopped chopping apples and looked at him. "I went where the rain took me. Most of the first year I was travelling I refused to admit to myself I felt more at home in overcast, raining places. I was afraid it meant I was deliberately seeking where vampires might live. I didn't want to be that mental, obsessive, zombie person again. I just wanted to be me, unencumbered by all of the things I'd thought I needed.

"Then I realised I was hanging out where I felt most connected to something. And that something wasn't a bad thing, it was just home. Still, I didn't think it was laudable to be a homebody so I persisted as a gypsy and made a point of visiting some of the rainiest parts of the world. I'm surprised you and Charlie didn't pick up on that theme," Bella finished with a smile.

Very glad she'd finally shared this, Jake hugged her again, avoiding the knife. "Dunno why you're surprised. We're not geographers you know. Just a simple cop and a mechanic.

"Besides, if you're saying rain reminds you of me, does that mean I'm a drip? How can I be both smokin' hot and a drip? That makes me steam, doesn't it?" Jake chuckled at his own cleverness.

Bella raised the knife. Jake ducked back in to his chair.

Bella watched him from the corner of her eye while she finished the pastry. "I know you'd like it if I talked about it more. About when I was travelling."

Jake nodded eagerly. "Whatever you want to tell me is fine, honey."

"Truth is, it wasn't really that exciting, you know? I just worked. Worked or saw the sights, and thought about you when I wasn't doing either of those things."

Jake ignored the knife and got up again to kiss her. This was why he loved her so damned much: because she'd decided to come back to life and back to him. She'd chosen life and him.

Charlie walked in just as Jake's big, square hands vanished under the hem of Bella's top.

"Looks like rain again tomorrow," he said by way of alerting them to his presence. Since Bella and Jake finally got their act together three years ago and made themselves a couple, Charlie had gradually gotten used to the idea that his little girl wasn't so little anymore. He'd also come to the grudging conclusion that if someone had to have their hands on her, he preferred it being Jake than anyone else.

"Yeah, I thought it smelled like rain in the air too," Jake agreed with Charlie, totally unabashed that he'd just been caught groping the man's daughter.

Bella turned a shade of red that put beetroots to shame, having yet to master her blush despite much practice. She muttered very quietly so only Jake heard, "You and your big wolf snout and your damned wolf paws!"

"What's that darling? Didn't quite hear you," Jake enquired artlessly.

"Dinner will be ready in forty minutes. I'm going to have a shower," Bella shot back at him and stomped off upstairs.

Charlie and Jake shared a shrug and then for once Charlie voiced what they were both thinking, "Hope this doesn't affect your plans for tonight, son."

_A/N - Reviews are nice. Kind of like puppies, sunshine and chocolate ;)_


	4. A Birthday Truck Indeed

Bella's mood improved after, or perhaps because of, her shower.

Jake had tried not to listen too closely to what she'd been doing upstairs. He stared very hard at the TV and agreed with every grunt Charlie made about the news but he was fairly certain Bella knew he could hear her and she was exploiting that fact. Jake wasn't too worried, he'd get her back eventually. Charlie catching sight of the bulge in his jeans was more of a pressing concern though.

Eventually Bella reappeared downstairs and was gratified to see the men had managed to set the table, get themselves beer _and_ make her tea. Perhaps, she thought, Y chromosomes weren't so piteously undomesticated after all.

Dinner was a quiet affair. Jake was a firm believer that silence was a sign of appreciation: it was easier to eat more without talking. Charlie was a firm believer that silence suited any situation. Bella used the silence to think about the classes she had tomorrow.

Charlie shoved his chair back after desert. "I'm doing the dishes tonight," he said simply with a meaningful look at Jake. The dishes were the least Charlie could do tonight but the most he'd get away with.

"I need to walk off some of that pie. Come with me Bells?" Jake stretched lazily, patting his stomach.

Bella eyed him doubtfully: burning calories was hardly something he struggled with. Still, there was something to be said for being alone with him. On the porch Jake kissed her slowly, thinking about her shower earlier in the evening. Bella decided there was definitely more to be said for being alone with Jake than being alone in the shower. Before she got too enthusiastic, he propelled her forward and down the steps gently.

"Why'd you drive Quil's truck over here?" she enquired as they crossed the front yard.

"He wanted to teach Claire to drive and the Rabbit's got an easier clutch so we swapped." Jake perjured himself and his ancient car easily.

"She's only ten."

Jake shrugged.

Bella bought it. Quil and the protective big brother relationship he had with his cousin Claire and remained a mystery to her. Jake felt a little bad for fabricating a story around them when, in actual fact, Quil probably wouldn't want Claire to drive until she was at least thirty; he was all for her enjoying as much of her childhood as possible. Something Quil himself hadn't been able to do.

Jake sympathised with that, but in order to borrow Quil's truck, he'd had to partially forgo his wise plan to keep his mouth shut to the pack regarding tonight.

This made Jake uneasy. Truth be told, it made him very uneasy.

He shoved bad memories of practical jokes gone appallingly wrong out of his mind. After all, he hadn't given the pack any details, just that he needed Quil's truck to transport something to Bella's house. Even the ingenious, collective pack mind shouldn't be able to do too much with that information.

"It's not a bad truck – for a Ford." Jake wandered over to it and ran a hand across a smooth, metallic grey fender.

Bella frowned. "Marsha Newton already tried to convince me to buy a new car today. Don't you start in on me too! While we're out here, can you take a look at Beastly?"

Jake pulled open the tailgate of Quil's Ford. Bella thought he was reaching for a toolbox but instead he vaulted into the bed of the pick up and started pulling a tarp off something chained to the rollbar.

"What is that?" Bella asked pointing at the lump of metal emerging from under the tarp.

Fiddling to free the last corner of the tarp, Jake replied, "A 427 big block V8 out of a '66 Corvette." He was unable to keep a hint of something out of his voice. Pride, perhaps?

Bella sensed Y chromosome heaven might be approaching and tried to nip it in the bud. "Oh," she said blandly. "Didn't realise it was show and tell for car parts this evening. You pick that up to transplant into a car in at the garage?"

Jake chucked the tarp out of the back of the truck to buy himself time. Caught by the wind, the tarp hopped across the yard until a tree blocked its escape.

"Not exactly, no-o." He drew the word out as an archer would draw a bowstring back to load and aim a dangerous arrow. "No," he said again, tightly this time.

"No, it's for your truck." The arrow had flown. "I can't give you anything for your birthday but I can give Beastly Bess a new motor."

From her position below him and two steps away from the back of Quil's pick up, Bella said nothing.

Jake filled the silence (which he feared was not of the appreciated kind) with humour. "You can look at it as more of a present to me really. If I fix your truck for good then I'm basically giving myself a lot of spare time in the long run."

Bella continued to say nothing. The arrow must have missed its mark.

In desperation, Jake looked down at her and tried the corny charm that usually got some kind of a reaction, "Don't you want a birthday _truck_, Bella?"

He was only halfway through his first suggestive eyebrow wiggle when Bella squealed loudly. "Ja-cob! Where's my damned spoon when I need it to hit you? Birthday _truck_, my ass."

Jake let a breath out. It formed a cloud around him in the chilly September evening.

"Seriously Jake, it's too much. Besides, Beastly's probably just got a loose spark plug wire again." Bella was proud she remembered something car-related.

Jake reached down to Bella. "I've tightened those wires so damned much they'll never come off the distributor cap again. Come on Bella, at least jump up here and have a look at Beastly's new guts."

Bella frowned.

Jake tried again. "I know how much you love Beastly, you oughta be respectful enough to pretend to admire what's gonna make her go like stink."

Bella relented and allowed Jake to haul her up onto the back of the truck. She reluctantly looked at the motor and realised that Jake had, typically, gone all out. She tried desperately to think of something nice to say to him, broken birthday rule or not.

Finally Bella settled for stating the obvious. "Aww, you put a red ribbon around it and everything. But you really shouldn't have. I should just sell the truck to that guy from Newton's and get a new car."

_That guy_. Two bits of information clicked in Bella's head. Given her limited knowledge of cars the clicking represented a major achievement.

Looking at Jake in confusion she asked, "Isn't this the same kind of motor _that guy_ was going to put in the truck if I sold it to him?"

"The very same," Jake answered smugly. "In fact, I bought it off him. He found an even older truck whose owner would sell, but the gearbox in it wouldn't match this motor without an adaptor plate so, well, long story short, easier to sell me the motor than buggerize around with it."

"How'd you-" Bella jabbed Jake in the side with an accusatory finger, "-find all this out?"

"Stole his card off your dresser and called him," Jake supplied.

"You, Jacob Black, are a sneaky, sneaky wolf!" Bella smoothed his shirt where she'd poked him and let her hand linger while she thought, furtively, how glad she was that Beastly Bess had a new lease on life.

Jake grinned.

Buoyed by the success of his plan thus far, Jake wheedled, "Come on Bells, I never get to see you unwrap birthday presents so can you do me a favour? Get up close and personal with the motor and pull that bow off, wouldya?"

Bella reached for the ribbon and gasped.

Attached to one end of the bow was a tiny ring full of red and blue stones.

Casting a frown back at Jake, she fumbled at the motor to take the ring off the ribbon.

"What _is_ this?" Bella demanded, her voice somewhere between curious, eager and frustrated. Turning around to give Jake the stink eye he surely deserved, Bella found him on one knee.

On one knee in the back of Quil's truck.

Jake laughed nervously, "I figure me and Beastly Bess are a package deal. Seeing as you seem to want to keep her around, I was wondering if you'd have me too for the rest of your life?"

Bella began laughing as well: it started as a frothy titter but ended with her clutching her sides. Only her Jacob would find an endearing way to propose in the back of a truck. In an effort to hug the kneeling Jake, Bella found herself tangled in the red ribbon and falling on top of him.

She stopped kissing him fiercely for a moment. "Know something, Jake? I fucking love you."

Jake continued grinning. "You haven't said yes yet, honey."

Bella shivered and poured herself around his heat. "To what? The birthday truck or the eloquent proposal?"

"Either." Jake's eyes were dark in the fading evening light.

Bella thought she could taste him on the cold air: a smoky but clean, pine-bright scent. But maybe that was just the neighbour's wood fire.

By way of answering, Bella started pulling Jake's shirt off. Birthday truck, indeed. She hoped Quil wouldn't care.

"Not complaining, honey, but Charlie – living room window – don't wana get shot –" Jake forced out. Pulling back from Bella was always hard but when they were outside it was so damned much harder. The wolf wanted its own way.

Bella made sure the ring was securely jammed on her finger, jumped out of the back of the truck and slid into the passenger side. "Let's go elsewhere then," she called seductively back to Jake who was, for the second time in the evening, adjusting his pants.

They got as far as the forest on the edge of the reservation before they couldn't help themselves. Before the storm broke.

The bench seat in the Ford seemed like a good idea because it was dry but after Bella's left foot knocked the truck into neutral and it nearly rolled into a tree, they relocated to the back.

Jake's massive form kept most of the rain off her.

Afterwards, lying sated and squashed between the motor and her man, Bella watched the raindrops evaporate on his chest. "Huh, you are steaming," she observed.

"Told you I was smokin' hot," Jake shot back.

Under her breath, Bella mumbled something about carrying a wooden spoon around with her all the time. Out loud she said "Good thing I'm gonna marry you Jacob. No one else would put up with your shit."

"Wouldn't want 'em to," he said gladly.

What he couldn't put into words was just _how_ glad he was that, on her twenty fifth birthday, Bella had chosen him permanently.

xxx

Friday night after Jake locked the garage and Bella returned from class in Port Angeles, they strolled hand in hand across First Beach towards a bonfire the pack had built in their honour. Billy and Charlie gave them identical, twinkling sly smiles.

Bella inhaled deeply. The fire smelled good and the hotdogs Embry was burning didn't smell bad either.

But as Jake leant down to whisper in her ear (something about avoiding Quil if she doesn't want embarrassing comments regarding his truck) she breathed in a scent that was home.

Forest, earth, sun, smoke, fire: Jake.

_A/N - One more chapter folks and then we're done :)_


	5. Garnets and Sapphires

Bella wouldn't wear the ring publicly (meaning her work and classes) until Beastly Bess was back on the road. It was only fair that way, she said. Something to do with the truck being what had brought them together in the first place when he was fourteen and she was sixteen.

Jake was unable to see any logic whatsoever in her argument (he suspected females lacked logic because they lacked a Y chromosome). But wanting Bella to have his ring on her finger permanently spurred him on to get the new motor in the truck as quickly as possible.

Quil and Embry volunteered to stay back at the garage after they finished their shifts and help out.

Jake dreaded the thought of how he would end up paying for their combined favour come January at his birthday-turned-prankfest. Quil was already making noises about Jake owing him the price of a hotel room seeing as that was how Jake and Bella had treated the back of the precious Ford.

Jake didn't really care though. Anything for his Bells and her truck.

Charlie wondered if he could squeeze in a present next year, seeing as Jake had broken the ice in fine style this year. Maybe it'd be acceptable to take his daughter out to dinner. He knew he'd have to wait on his wish of watching her unwrap something though. Jake hadn't mellowed her out that much.

Yet.

One day though.

Charlie also considered his chances of getting away with buying his kid an engagement present. He was pretty sure engagements didn't fall under the birthday embargo. He thought maybe following Jake's route would be safe – something for the damned truck. Definitely not a stereo (Jake had patched up the hole in the dash several years ago while he was waiting for Bella to come back from wherever she was), floor mats seemed too mundane, a new paint job would only get chipped. Tires maybe?

Bella caught Charlie thinking about all this and looking wistfully at Beastly one afternoon while he stepped out of his cruiser. She misinterpreted his expression and secretly thought Charlie was jealous of her ride.

"Good thing you're not allowed to tamper with cop cars or your dad might try souping up Carleen," Jake told Bella as they'd laughed at her father's covetous glances at Beastly.

xxx

Bella pulled into the parking lot at Newton's in Beastly Bess on the second weekend in October. It had only taken three minutes to get there from home instead of the usual five. The truck practically flew. It might as well have been one of those 747s towards which she was convinced Jake's mechanical aptitude extended.

Bella made a mental note not to speed in future. Being the police chief's daughter and the small town syndrome of Forks was enough of a recipe to get people talking so they didn't need her help. Bella'd already had enough of that kind of talk to last her a lifetime.

Marsha still talked though. There was no stopping that.

"Got your old banger back, I see," she commented as Bella walked in to start what might be a busy weekend. Now the dollar was weak, the Canadians tended to come down over their Thanksgiving long weekend and buy up camping gear by the ton.

"It's less bang-y now," Bella said obtusely to Marsha as she reached up to collect her hair in a pony tail.

But Marsha didn't hear, she was too busy squealing loudly about the ring on Bella's left hand. "Is that an engagement ring? Can't be, no diamonds. What's that boy of yours thinking? Doesn't he know…"

Bella looked at Marsha sternly. "My fiancé was thinking that garnets are his birthstone and the sapphires are mine. January and September," she finished rather bluntly.

Bella did not add that she was deeply grateful Jake had not chosen diamonds.

They remind her horribly of sparkling vampires. She'd timidly told Jake that one night when she was lying in his bed about a week after they'd got engaged. To her surprise he agreed vehemently and said that's why he'd avoided the "stupid sparkly stones."

Sometimes Bella was a little frightened by how alike she and her wolfboy were at heart. But she was also deeply grateful he'd realised that similarity long before she ever had.

After she wrangled her hand out of Marsha's grip, Bella absently stroked the ring and smiled out the window at her truck. Seeing as Beastly Bess and Jake were a package deal, the truck was probably was the best damned present Charlie could ever have bought her.

She'd tell Charlie that over dinner tonight.

FIN


End file.
